


All Along, You Were Elsewhere

by carolee_sea



Series: After the Storm [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe, Childhood Friends, Fishing, Islands, M/M, Prequel, can be read as standalone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:42:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26594653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carolee_sea/pseuds/carolee_sea
Summary: On a small island village, love blooms and departs in the summer.Hinata Shouyou first meets Kageyama Tobio, fishing prodigy, at age seven.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou & Kageyama Tobio, Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio
Series: After the Storm [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1934647
Comments: 6
Kudos: 17





	All Along, You Were Elsewhere

**Author's Note:**

> my farewell fic to summer.  
> warning: i do not want anyone to suffer. i did not tag this as a breakup fic because technically no one breaks up. however, there is leaving and no goodbyes. happy ending? questionable.
> 
> as always, enjoy!

The day Kageyama leaves starts out like any other day.

Blue, blue skies pale with the touch of morning frost, gradually melting into azure by the movement of the sun. 

Shouyou wakes up, no one beside him. He doesn’t think much of it at first. Whenever Kageyama sleeps over, he’s always up before Shouyou.

Shouyou’s tiny kitchen is already filled with bright light, bouncing off the counters and pots and pans hanging by the cabinets. The kitchen is empty too, but that’s normal. It’s a weekday, good weather. Kageyama must have already headed out to fish.

Shouyou cheerfully fixes up his breakfast, a simple toast layered with wildflower honey and topped with a dollop of fresh cream. He’ll eat more for lunch, after he’s finished running his morning errands—

A quick watering of the roses in his garden, a bike ride over to the Tsukishimas to help with their tomato plants, and a visit by the fish market to pick up some fish for his next meal. 

He’s deciding between the cod and the rockfish when he remembers to ask about Kageyama. Not that he’s too worried. The day is splendid blue, and the sea is shimmering so brilliantly that it’s hard to look at. 

“Have you seen Kageyama?” he asks Ukai, the grumpy but well-meaning manager.

“Nope, but I reckon he already headed out to sea. Boy wakes up earlier than anyone on this damn island,” Ukai says, leaning back in his chair. “You done choosing yet?”

Shouyou stares at the bulging, bloodshot eyes of the rockfish. “I’ll take the cod.”

Kageyama isn’t on his mind for the rest of the day, he doesn’t need to, not when Shouyou will always see him arrive with the sunset, true-blue eyes and decks spilling with silver. 

Today, this time, the horizon is empty. 

Tomorrow, the same story. And all the tomorrows afterwards. Kageyama’s page has ended mid-sentence.

Ten years ago, a different story. 

〜〜〜

Shouyou first meets Kageyama in the summer.

It’s a bright evening: sun burning on the horizon, Kageyama’s slight form silhouetted against the light. 

“Hey! I’m Hinata Shouyou! What’s your name?”

The boy turns, and Hinata catches a flash of blue eyes.

“Kageyama Tobio.” He dips his head in greeting. “Nice to meet you.”

〜〜〜

Kageyama Tobio is polite. He is seven years old, just like Shouyou. He has carefully cut black hair and blue eyes that are always excited, like he’s holding back, waiting to burst. 

For his quietness, Kageyama sure is intense. While Shouyou is doing the normal kid stuff: digging up worms in dirt, bicycling down hills, and playing games with the next door neighbor, Kageyama is out at sea.

Kageyama’s grandfather is a weathered fisherman, the one to show Kageyama the ropes. When Shouyou asks about it, Kageyama is the most animated he’s ever been. His eyes start sparkling like the ocean at high noon. He talks about the spray of water when the boat runs against the waves, the smell of salt and brine in the air. Naturally, as most children are when presented with something new and exciting, Shouyou is interested in fishing, but it’s not exactly a profession that people from non-fishing families start. And when Shouyou sees all the bleeding blisters on Kageyama’s soft hands, he thinks it’s fine to not be from a fishing family.

His next door neighbor, Kenma, is from a fishing family. Kenma is a year older than Shouyou and is always grumbling about having to start fishing when he’s ten. According to Kenma, that’s when the kids of fishing families begin learning.

Kageyama was only five when he faced the waves for the first time.

〜〜〜

_Prodigy_. That’s the word for it. Shouyou will always remember the day he biked by the fishery in the early morning and discovered just how unusual Kageyama was. 

At eight years of age, Kageyama brings back his first sailfish, a beast at 90 kilograms.

The sailfish is strung up by its tail on the viewing platform, absolutely dwarfing a beaming Kageyama standing next to it. It looks like one of those monsters in Kenma’s comic books with its large jagged sailfin and sharp protruding bill. 

Kageyama looks happy. It’s the only way to describe it, the flush on his cheeks and his shining eyes. He’s ecstatic, despite the long scratches on his arms, still bleeding red.

“Hey, Kageya-” By now, a crowd is beginning to form around the platform, and Shouyou’s call is lost in a sea of voices.

“Look how small he is!”

“...thought that boy Oikawa was good, but this…”

“I call bullshit! There’s no way a child-”

“... haven’t had a fisherman like him in ages…”

“That’s a prodigy fer ya.”

〜〜〜

Shouyou’s memory of childhood is a little blurred around the edges, but he’ll always remember the great typhoon when he was nine years old. 

Rain doesn’t come often to the island. It feels like summer all year round, just a little bit windier in the mornings during winter. A storm so big has never happened before. A few days before it hits, the skies are covered in a heavy blanket of grey, and the seagulls are circling in agitation, alarmed cries piercing the static air. Their small village is filled with the murmurs of the fishermen. 

Shouyou has never been afraid of many things— bugs of all sizes, scraping his knees all bloody when he trips down the hills, the abandoned house at the pebble beach just around the harbor, built on rotting plywood and ghostly rumors— nothing quite scares him.

But this. This he is afraid of, for the first time.

He’s at Kageyama’s house, empty except the two of them. There is no sound at first, just a brilliant flash that blinds him and sends a jolt up his spine. The light briefly illuminates the room, and Shouyou has a clear view of Kageyama covering his ears before it fizzles out in the rain. After a few seconds of awed silence comes the crashing of thunder, louder than Shouyou has ever heard in his life. The cacophony surrounds him, yet feels concentrated into a single force, horrible and rumbling and like nothing he’s experienced. In that moment, he becomes acutely aware of his mortality and insignificance in the world. It’s terrifying, to be so conscious of the heartbeat thrumming within his body and the blood rushing through his veins, as the downpour assails the earth. 

Kageyama is staring out the window at the torrential rain, face pressed up against the glass. Shouyou slumps against the wall, feeling the reverberations echo through the earth, the reverberations of the pounding rain, the ceaseless wind, and the last vestiges of thunder.

“Are you afraid?” Kageyama’s voice is slightly muffled, his breath misting over the cold glass.

“Are you not?”

“I guess not. Isn’t it so cool? Imagine fishing in this weather!” 

As lightning flickers across the sky once more, Shouyou catches a glimpse of the glimmer in Kageyama’s eyes, bright and unrelenting, even against the dreary gray of the world.

The thunder sounds again, this time in the distance like a far echo. 

It is one of those times Shouyou thinks Kageyama is different, not quite meant for this island.

〜〜〜

Shouyou is fifteen when his neighbor Kenma starts plotting his grand escape plan from the island. He's planning to get to the mainland, settle down in a city somewhere. Shouyou thinks it's kind of funny, how Kenma, who’s terrible with meeting new people, dislikes the fishing business enough that he would move off the island.

Kageyama on the other hand, is still hooked on fishing, line, sinker and all. 

Shouyou develops a bit of a crush on him, the type you get when your childhood friend grows up and becomes all the more admirable and awe-inspiring. It’s the type of crush you have on someone so close but unattainable. It’s a bit like oyster diving that the kids do, trying to reach for one at the bottom of the trench. As you reach out, fingers brushing algae-cloaked shell, the water pressure pushes against you, until your lungs are begging for oxygen and your heart is beating so fast it’s ready to burst. 

Kageyama has grown taller and lankier, yet holds himself with steady grace. Shouyou's seen the way he pulls the pole back when he feels the slightest bite on the line, hands and footing strong and sure. His dark hair has grown longer, falling into his eyes and curling against the back of his tanned neck, wet with sea spray. 

When Shouyou kisses him for the first time, wind skidding past their hair, it's what he tastes like. Salt and wind. 

And something wild and foreign.

Shouyou’s instincts are screaming things at him, things he can’t hear over the crash of the waves.

Yet Kageyama doesn’t have the air of a storm. Kageyama would be the stillest of waters, glass that runs deep, as unassuming as a shadow. 

The day Shouyou, blushing poppy red, blurts out that he likes Kageyama, Kageyama replies “okay.” He doesn’t say the words back, not ever, but he holds Shouyou’s hand and kisses him back, sweet as freesia and heartbreakingly gentle.

His idea of love is bringing back stingrays from fishing excursions because Shouyou had never seen them before. His idea of a date is teaching Shouyou how to fish, then teaching Shouyou how to cook fish. Shouyou’s not sure if love is supposed to look like this. But it’s fine, really, because he’s Shouyou’s first love, and the first bloom is always the prettiest.

Shouyou starts growing a rosebush in the empty plot of dirt around his house. He’s read that they last long when properly taken care of, how new roses, each more beautiful than the last, will grow when the old ones are snipped off. Shouyou likes this idea. He hopes his roses are everlasting.

It gets frustrating sometimes. It’s hard deciphering Kageyama’s mumbles and grunts, hard to grow roses on a windy island unkind to soft petals. 

When the roses finally bud, when Kageyama still reaches out for Shouyou’s hand after years, Shouyou thinks maybe, maybe—

Shouyou has never been blessed with anything, but he thinks this might be it. 

He sits in the middle of his garden, now teeming with the thriving leaves of countless new plants, wonders, briefly, if things will stay like this forever. It’s an endless dream, like resting upon a sea of clouds alight with the sunrise.

〜〜〜

“I had a dream,” Kageyama says, and he has several of them, one after the other, every night. They’re about unfamiliar coastlines, a different shade of blue. His eyes start to glaze over, and Shouyou always finds him staring wistfully at the horizon, searching the distance. There are fewer words, longer silences, and a restlessness in his movements. He falls asleep quickly, before the moon has barely lifted its reflection off of the night sea, and wakes up early, before the stars can hide behind day blue. His presence becomes a shadow under a cloudy sky, barely there, fleeting footsteps. 

The night before Kageyama leaves, it is summer. Shouyou’s roses are blooming under the full moon. Their petals glow like pearls at the bottom of the sea, devastatingly beautiful.

_I had a dream too_ , Shouyou replies, rather belatedly, as he sits alone on the sea wall. He stares into the vivid orange of the August sun burning on the horizon, waiting for something that might never come.

Perhaps, it never was here in the first place.

〜〜〜

“Sweet dreams,” Shouyou mumbles into Kageyama’s shirt, eyes tightly shut. It’s July and sweltering. 

Kageyama grunts in reply, throws a leg over Shouyou’s.

“Hinata.”

...

“Oi, Hinata.”

“Hm?”

“Isn’t it too hot to be sleeping like this?”

“That’s why it’s nice. Hot summer nights are meant to be like this.” Hinata shifts, feels the breeze on his clammy skin, opens his eyes. “It’s perfect.”

Kageyama’s blue eyes are clear, tender, as his pole-worn hand touches Shouyou’s hair.

And for a moment, it is.

**Author's Note:**

> \- please excuse the convoluted timeline  
> \- i dislike sad endings so i ended with a faux happy one. it would technically be in the middle of their relationship, when times were simpler and happier.  
> \- i’m very curious about what you think! especially about kageyama. i can talk about him all day long, but anything else goes too. tell me about your day. has it gone well?  
> \- comments make my day, even more so now when im suffering in the gloomy world of academia. take me to a summer island please. i hope you were on one while reading this fic, however briefly.  
> \- if you made it all the way here, please consider checking out wohmoa (it’s essentially my magnum opus + a lot brighter and more hopeful than this one!)


End file.
